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the MAMA of ella

email me!if you'd like to ask me a question or pass along an idea, please email rowena@ella-echo.com. i'm always thrilled to hear from readers, and i read every single message--but not always right away. a few days may pass before you hear back from me. it's not personal, i promise. :)

on easter sunday, ella made her first holy communion. my parents were able to be here for the occasion. while a first communion is actually a roman practice, ella wanted to make a more formal occasion of it, to have important family members present, since her whole experience in life thus far has been roman. fr. kevin was very understanding and went out of his way to make this day special for her.

the altar before mass started:

flowering the cross—everybody brought flowers from home and covered the empty cross with them—we had never seen this before, but we all loved it and it gives me a new insight when i see a cross covered in flowers on the side of the road:

communion at this church is normally taken kneeling at the rail, but fr. kevin had ella come up last, standing at the front of the aisle, so that the whole church could witness and pray with her as she made her first communion.

joyfully prayerful afterward:

there was some discussion in our family as to whether or not she would wear a veil. in the end, she told me that she had prayed on it and her heart had told her not to wear one. so she wore one of her favorite headbands instead.

fr. kevin filled ella’s holy water bottle with the water he had blessed at mass. those are my adorable mama and daddy on the left. after this day was all over, i told rudi that i had finally discovered the value of paying a professional photographer for big events: they are not involved, so they have the presence of mind to get the family all together for pictures. i am not a professional photographer and thus did not have that presence of mind. :(

the mass was followed by a potluck lunch and an easter egg hunt!

mama gave ella a rosary that has the sacred heart on one side of the centerpiece and our lady of fatima on the other. the stones in the centerpiece and the halo of the crucifix are ella’s birthstone.

according to ella, she is now fully qualified and authorized to take communion everywhere in the world, so now she wants to go to mass every day.

September 10, 2011

every fall we host an open house to celebrate the beginning of another year of homeschool. normally we hold the open house on the last weekend of august but this year, we did a little switcheroo and held it a few weeks later, which allowed us to treat our guests to a little surprise.

when they arrived for the open house, this is what they saw:

but when they came inside, this is what they saw:

that's right, we surprised our guests by holding a birthday party!

the reason for making it a surprise was simple: we didn't want our guests to feel obligated to bring gifts, and we didn't want to discourage friends we knew would stay away if they couldn't afford to bring a gift--we just wanted friends to come and celebrate with us.

as you can see, the theme was angry birds, our new family obsession. we made angry birds bean bags and paper mache’ pigs and set up our blocks on a table for the kids to play:

and we had a cool bird craft that i neglected to get pictures of before dark (tomorrow, i promise).

this was one of the funnest parties we've ever had, it was so wonderful to get to yell “SURPRISE!” over and over all afternoon! i wish we could do it every year.

*i always enjoy hosting parties but getting them ready wears me out! i did one thing that made it go a little more smoothly—i put single scoops of ice cream in paper cupcake liners and had them in the freezer ready to serve. how do you make kids parties easier?

August 07, 2011

so--the new domain name for this blog is www.the-ella-echo.com. this change means that many links are now broken. as i find them, i'll fix them, and i'd appreciate it if you'd let me know if you find a broken link here or anywhere else online.

and it would be a great help if you'd spread the word about the new URL!

as i said to a friend, i'm trying not to be upset about it--after all, no bombs were dropped, nobody's baby died, and this is not going to affect the stock market in any way, so it's really going to be ok.

July 05, 2011

but we did manage to do the most important thing on the list: we finished 2nd grade with honors, dignity, grace, and good fun.

ella decided on the last day of june--which was the last day of the school year--that she wanted to have a graduation. she made a hat out of cardboard, a little yarn, and a button from her button stash.

she set up a podium using the stepstool from the kitchen and the ottoman from the living room.

she practiced what she would say, i printed out a certificate, and when her daddy got home that night we had a graduation.

April 24, 2011

*i first published this post on my "placeholder" blog on 10 april, 2009. it is the best "translation" of the story that i've ever heard. i re-publish it each year in celebration of easter.

the passion and resurrection of jesus, as told by ella at age four:

"so jesus took his friends to lunch and told them he was going away. and he broke their bread but he made them eat it anyway.

"then he went to the yard and prayed and the soldiers came and got him. that wasn't very kind.

"the soldiers took him to the pilot and the pilot said he had to get on the cross even though he didn't do anything wrong, because that was why he got born.

"so jesus got on the cross with two other guys, and one of the guys said, 'i'm sorry, jesus', and jesus said, 'i know. it's ok, i forgive you.' jesus will forgive you too, you just have to tell him you're sorry.

"then his friends put him in a cave and moved the rock and he stayed there the next day, and then the other next day jesus came out of the cave and he was alive again. that was the first easter.

"then all his friends wanted to look at his boom-booms ["boo-boos" = his hand wounds] and then he rised up on his cloud and one day he will rise down again to visit us.

"and then his friends had a meeting because they were worried about jesus being up on the cloud and all their hair caught on fire but it didn't burn them. they had to tell a grown up about the fire and then stop-drop-and roll.

"and then his friends told everybody to watch the clouds in case jesus was rising down again."

January 15, 2011

nashville parent magazine invited me to blog for them and i happily accepted! once a week (more or less), i'll be posting exclusive content in their parent blog section that will compliment what i post here on my own blog.

it would thrill me if you'd hop over to nashville parent from time to time and leave a comment or share my posts. i'll let you know each week when i've posted over there so you won't have to guess. this week's post is already up, it's about some things you can do on snow days when the kids are out of school and you have run out of craft projects. :)

sneak peak for next week: why my advice is of no use to other parents.

*i always on the lookout for suggestions for new posts, for this blog or for nashville parent! what would you like to read more about?

January 07, 2011

we saw an ad on TV for a device called neat desk which says it will scan any paper and automatically detect what type of document it is, then sort and file it for you. while watching it, i wondered out loud whether or not it really worked--mostly just making small talk while doing a jigsaw puzzle--and ella jumped up to get a piece of paper and a pen.

"mama, we need to separate the truths from the lies."

she then drew a grid with two columns. at the top of the left column she wrote, "CLAIMS", and at the top of the right column she wrote, "FACTS".

she asked to go thru the website to see what they claimed, then she offered her interpretation of the facts, as follows:

CLAIM: organize your paper.

FACT: "that's not something you need a machine for."

CLAIM: simplify your life.

FACT: "what does it mean? will your house be cleaner? will it be easier to keep up with your stuff? we need more information."

CLAIM: 30-day, risk-free trial

FACT: "you have to pay them to send it to you, and they don't tell you how much until you order it. but you can send it back for free if you decide it isn't right for you. ok, that does sound like a fair deal."

the moral of the story is this: they do hear you. they do listen. and they do take it to heart. but you might not know it for a while. be patient. i guarantee they’ll show you in due time.

HIATUS

I'M NOT HERE!

i am on indefinite hiatus from all my blogs. i will not be adding any original content for the foreseeable future. please feel free to surf around the blog--there are years worth of material here, much of which has been buried in the mists of time--but do not expect responses to emails or comments because i'm not here. :) thank you for your understanding.